It will not be an understatement to say that Nigeria has been infected with viruses that are more than novel coronavirus that has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation. The only difference is just that one has a short life span while the other bagged long term. It only takes coronavirus 2-14 days to manifest and either snuff life out of its victims or spears its victims from the fang of death.
The long term ones are the pandemic diseases deliberately created by our visionless leaders which brought us to the level we are today. Nepotism, tribalism, corruption, religious and some other social ills.
Shortly after the President of Nigeria, Muhammad Buhari placed the stay-at-home order on Lagos, Ogun and FCT due to coronavirus that has been ravaging the world over like wildfire, leaving the low and mighty in a dilemma of survivability.
This got me thinking which took me back and forth about our leaders and the current situation we found ourselves that has further exposed the decay in our system of government.
Ever before now, we all know what we have as a system is basically an unstructured and expensive system riddled with corruption, nepotism, ethnicity, greed and hopelessness that led us to the height of impunity and futureless country.
Thanks to our past leaders, from the men in khaki down to flowing gown wearing men who did not only milked the nation dry but mortgaged the future of the next generation as all they have succeeded in doing is plunged the nation into the dark abyss of debt and degradation leaving the nation to limp on one leg.
A clinical look at the past shows the emptiness of what is supposed to be well-orchestrated administrations with history of good governance and buoyant economy but as saying goes that “what you sow is what you’ll reap”. Poor leadership no doubt cannot bring forth good governance, good for good and bad for bad. We have been reaping from bad leadership and can only expect things to go back to normal only when we change our system of government as well as our mindset.
If we have had a stream of good leaders and governance, Nigeria will definitely be better than what we have at the moment. The nation will be boasting of good infrastructures and buoyant economy that will put us if not among the fast-rising third world countries thereby genuinely and rightfully claim the ‘giant of Africa’ status as being called.
For instance, the moment the virus finds its way into the African continent and declared by World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic, Nigeria would have been in the best position leading other African countries in the fight against the dreaded disease with a handful of brilliant and well trained medical experts just like Nigeria did in the past helping other African countries like Liberia from Charles Taylor, South Africans from Apartheid, Sierra-Leon from civil war, DR Congo and Trinidad and Tobago in ending oppression from the opposition.
Madagascar saw the opportunity to register their name in the sand of time, they never hesitate to grab it by jugular having to produced COVID-19 vaccine which they distributed to other Africa countries even though, World Health Organization (WHO) refused to approve it but they have proof they can do the ‘impossible’.But Nigeria failed to take its rightful place and Madagascar took it. Nigeria has enough resource to do wonder but let it slipped away just like that. So sad!
With the vaccine, Madagascar has been able to save her loved ones and worry less about the pandemic coronavirus. I don’t know of any other virus but coronavirus is out of the way in Madagascar.
Fortunately, the virus is not as active and devastating in Africa as we have in other European and Asia countries put together but unfortunately, the health crisis has further exposed the decay in Nigeria, fallen short of her capability to stand tall and take her rightful place amongst top rising third world nations willing to take measures where and when necessary tackling the situations as they arise. But what we have left is feeble and carcass Nigeria.
Although the crisis was sudden somehow, I believe there should have been an emergency provision for an unforeseen situation like this with the availability of finance and accurate data through with which dissemination of relief materials could be done without hassle.
Imagine the federal government asking people to stay at home without making adequate provision for the citizens during the outbreak of the dreaded virus which obviously is due to a poor database. This is one of the reasons why the President United state of America, Donald Trump banned Nigerians from visiting their country a few months ago and even hike the visa fee.
The national identification project has failed to serve its purpose since 2003 when it was first introduced by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. What is supposed to be a continuous project was at one time, abandoned by one administration and later revisited by another. What about the huge amount of money wasted and millions of Naira syphoned by the then Minister of Interior who’s now late. The rest is now history.
The Biometric Verification Number (BVN) that could have salvaged the situation has a total of 36.8 million linked accounts out of 71.79 million active bank accounts according to Nigerian Interbank Settlement Scheme’s records (NISS) representing only 51 per cent of the total number of active bank accounts which did not capture the required numbers of accounts as expected.
Nigeria as a nation has remained helpless as nothing seems to be working. No adequate, viable and well-executed government policies that will drive the economy out of the debacle of which availability of standard database is one aspect that will help in no small measures in tackling some unresolved socio-economic issues that have put the nation in stagnation mode.
Social critics, environmentalists, activists, economists and some other concerned groups have called on our leaders at various level of government severally in the past to always formulate government policies that will bring about a meaningful transformation that will put nation’s economy back on the track but the calls have been falling on deaf ears.
I can stop imagining what would have happened if the coronavirus had spread at astronomical rate thereby wiping out half of the population, God forbid, when we do not have the needed tools to handle or curtail the spread at the appropriate time. The situation would have been a deadly one no doubt.
As at today, Brazil became the second country hit with the highest numbers of death after United of America with a record 54,000 death. It’s a devastating situation for the Latin America country who has been trying all it could to curtail the pandemic coronavirus.
It’s better for our leaders to learn from others and do the right thing at the right time. Imagine our leaders fly out of the country to treat themselves abroad using the taxpayers’ money they should have injected to build top-class hospitals where others will benefit. Unfortunately for many of them, they no longer have where to run to, now that most of the countries they usually run to have all shut their borders while some are sending foreigners back to their home countries.
If they have managed to put in place a superb health care delivery system that the nation can boast of, if they still prefer to look elsewhere for succour, that’ll be at their own expense. Besides, if the countries they oftentimes run to did not build or put in place top-class health care facilities, would they have benefited like they are now?
However, It’s not too late as I see this crisis as a litmus test for our leaders to do the needful by ensuring they go for enumeration of every individual called National population census which ordinarily takes place every ten years, the last being in 2007 during President Umaru Musa Yar’dua administration.
In recent times, the population of Nigeria is put at 200 million from 180 million in 2007 which was the last time the headcount took place. How we now arrived at 200 million is worrisome and begging for answers.
The federal government as a matter of urgency in collaboration with National Population Census and Bureau of Statistics must work hands in hands to bring out the real figures so as for agencies to be able to figure out the actual number which we see as one of best solution out of the present situation.
Research Institutes where necessary researches can be carried out to take care of certain needs must be established and the researchers must be well remunerated thereby cutting out frivolous travelling abroad by our resource persons. Who knows if we have good ones around, we may be the first to find solutions to some issues like Madagascar did, take the pride and be one of the leaders in solution providers in Africa and the world at large.
These are the reasons why it’s much easier for the United Kingdom, United State of America and some other countries to have been able to salvage the situation when they have crises like this.
The uninterrupted power supply must also be considered as Nigerians and many businesses have suffered serious setback thereby throwing many entrepreneurs into labour market while others have joined or engaged in social vices like armed robbery, burglars, prostitution and cybercrime popularly called “Yahoo-yahoo”.
Without much ado, education is very important for a nation to make desirable progress and as such, the stakeholders must look for a way to finetune the policies of education where necessary to fit into Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) thereby cutting out running obsolete programs.
Back in the days, in the ’80s to be precise, Nigeria used to have a unified curriculum of education but today, it’s the other way round. Every state now has a different curriculum. The same curriculum should have been adopted to make way for interstate and intrastate competitions when and where necessary especially when they attend same competition like JETS, Cowbellpedia, Interswitch Spark Science competition, MTN Spelling Bee Competition etc.
The federal government must intensify efforts on security of its citizens considering the fact that safety of lives and properties is sacrosanct and priority of any serious government that has the interest of its people at heart. The issue of Boko-Haram, kidnapping and banditry must be tackled headlong without blinking an eye.
Too many lives have been lost owing to saboteurs who have been feeding fat on the crisis. The most unfortunate things is that these are the same people we entrusted with the security of the nation coupled with the lackadaisical attitude of the federal government at the beginning of the crisis.
If the government had taken the terrorists serious just at the beginning, ensuring they are dealt with outrightly, we wouldn’t have lost many of our smart and brilliant soldiers, civilians, properties and even billions of naira that could have been pumped into other viable and sensible projects that people will benefit from.
No sensible government that put all these aforementioned solutions into place will encounter any hardship whatsoever as things will no doubt be falling into places. That’s why we see many of the European countries flourishing in all aspects of human endeavour. All we ask for; in the words of late Mamman J. Vatsa, is good leadership and a well-structured system of government devoid of nepotism, tribalism, religious conflict and other social ills which is the only way out if we really desire to make meaningful progress like every other nation of the world.
